The Ripple Of Change
by LikeASociopath
Summary: Post-Reichenbach. When Sherlock Holmes comes back to London to find Molly Hooper a different person, he is determined to get to the bottom of it. To the consulting detective, no puzzle should ever go unsolved and he will do anything to unveil the mystery, even if it means following the pathologist into a blue police box, then so be it.
1. Prologue

**DISCLAIMER: I do not own Sherlock and Doctor Who.**

This is my first venture into writing fan fiction. Special thanks to my beta reader **Black Angel of the Underworld** for her patience and awesome proofreading skill :)

I hope you like the story!

* * *

**Prologue**

Molly Hooper was exhausted. She couldn't feel her legs anymore and her shift seemed like it was never going to end.

Standing over the latest corpse she had on the slab, she wondered if her days would continue to be like this until she died: monotonous, tiring, boring.

And waiting for the one man who would never love her back.

It had been seven months since he left, off to wherever he was needed to dismantle Moriarty's network.

During her darkest days, she winced at her own thought of ever being with _the_ Sherlock Holmes. Why would a genius like him ever be attracted to a plain and unassuming woman like herself? She had worked alongside him for several years. Even though she enjoyed those times when he came to the lab to run some experiments, he seemed to forget her being there in the same space as him altogether.

Sometime she would compare herself to Irene Adler. It was true that she had never met the woman before. And she instantly saw the differences. The woman was beautiful, sexy, and clever. She was, in essence, a seductress. One would even say she was the perfect match for Sherlock.

It wasn't as if she was stupid. In fact, Molly Hooper was actually an intelligent woman. It wasn't easy to become a pathologist at her age, yet she did it. She also had a few journal articles published on several medical journals. Not to forget the occasional offers she received for various high-paying positions – the most notable one being the head of scientific research at a prestigious university.

However, aside from that, she was nothing. She knew she wasn't beautiful or sexy like Irene. She had an apartment, she paid her rent on time, she went out with her friends occasionally, and she had a cat named Toby. She also admitted to herself that some time she didn't have the best taste in fashion.

All in all, she was normal - and Sherlock Holmes _despised_ normal.

She didn't accept any of the offers because the ability to help the dead speak - figuratively speaking, of course - and the gratification she experienced in helping the families to find closure are important to her. Even during her more honest moments, she stayed because of Sherlock Holmes.

But she didn't fool herself to think she was in any way important to him. No one thought much about her. Why would anyone? She was just there when they needed her, and easily forgotten when they stopped needing her. She just didn't count.

When Jim Moriarty – the ITguy – entered her life, she thought she was, at least, worth something. That someone actually noticed her. However, it turned out she had been dating another sociopath. A _murderous_ sociopath who lied to her in order to get to Sherlock. In hindsight, she should have noticed it. Of course, no one would ever willingly date her, let alone remember her. Of course it would be because of Sherlock Holmes.

There was one time he remembered her. It was also the only time she had seen something other than cold aloofness in his eyes when he looked at her: it was when he asked her to fake his death.

It was ironic, that he would ask the one person who didn't count to do something so important to him. She helped him to cheat death in front of the entire world. To be truthful, she had been slightly hopeful when he told her that she mattered when he asked her for help. She hoped that he would come to acknowledge her and maybe, just maybe, that they could start something together.

However, when all she got was a sparing glance and a grateful nod from him afterwards, she dispersed the thought. She knew, at the very least, that he was grateful for her help because it was the first, and probably the last, time that he would spare her a glance longer than one second. But it was just that. A "thank you." Nothing more, nothing less.

Still, the little girl inside her – the same little girl who looked at the starry night sky and wished for a prince in shining armor – hoped that he would come to love her.

Sometimes, she would be jealous of John Watson, the man who managed to get close to Sherlock and became his best friend. They lived together and, somehow, it worked. She had accepted that she would most likely never hear from him anymore, if he ever came back at all. She was sure it would be John to hear about it first.

Molly knew. She knew it all came down to the fact that Sherlock Holmes didn't see her. It would never be her. There would be someone else but it would never, ever, be her.

She just didn't matter.

She snapped out of her thought when a voice called out to her, "Molly? Hey, I'll cover for you. You look dead on your feet. Go home and get some rest, would you?"

She turned around to find her colleague smiling kindly at her and she returned the smile. "Alright, thank you."

Normally, she would feel really bad to have someone to cover a part of her shift. But, today, she couldn't get home fast enough. She was really tired and all she wanted was a hot shower and a good night sleep.

She threw the gloves into the biohazard bin in the corner and walked out of the room after another muttered thanks to her colleague.

* * *

On her way home, she contemplated the thought of resigning and accepting one of the offers. Maybe she should start moving on.

Because staying here starting to mean nothing to her anymore.

Yes. She was honest enough to admit that she was lonely. And, yes, she did try to do something about it, something along the line of speed dating and creating a profile on a dating website. But they never worked. And why would they, when all she could think about was a pale face framed by dark curls and the penetrating blue-green eyes that could tell everything about you just by a glance.

When she unlocked the front door to her flat, she expected Toby to welcome her by curling himself around her feet. She expected that the cup of tea she left on the kitchen counter to be cold before she had left for work in the morning. She also expected the stack of files on the table to be scattered around because she didn't close the living room window in her rush to get to work.

What she didn't expect was to find a blue police box in her living room - and a man battling a robot. No, correction, a man with a _bow tie_ battling a robot by waving around the room with a torchlight.

She rubbed her eyes, thinking she must be hallucinating the whole ordeal because she was overworked and exhausted and –

Oh my god, was that _another_ robot walking out of her bathroom? Really now?

Without knowing what to do with her overly imaginative mind that just wouldn't shut up, she stood at the doorway and watched. Perhaps at the same time, ignoring the tiny little voice in the back of her mind that this might not be a hallucination. But why didn't the neighbours come running with all this noise from her flat then?

Clearly, it was just a hallucination.

When all there was left of the robots were two piles of smouldering ashes on her fluffy pink carpet, she stared at the strange man who had a smug grin on his face.

"Who are you?" she managed to say. Ah, she was even _talking_ to her mind projection now, how wonderful. She should really just go to sleep.

"Oh, hello! Didn't see you there," the projection answered, too, she thought.

"Um, why are you here? And what were those…things?"

"Oh, you mean the Cybermen! Actually, I'm sure there are more of them hiding in this building posing as humans by a filter that would alter your perception of them so you would think of them as humans. A wonderful disguise, I might add, but they should have never taken to changing humans into one of them. That is not good. No emotion, the lot of them."

After pointing the torchlight thing he held towards the piles of ashes, he turned around and asked, "How terribly rude of me. What is your name?"

Well, since it was just a product of her tired mind, it wouldn't do any harm to tell the man her name (she was pretty sure she had never seen him before, but she never did understood how the mind worked anyway). So, she just blinked and said, "Molly. Molly Hooper."

The man smiled brightly and spread his arms. "And I'm the Doctor."

He continued to point the strange thing around her flat and then frowned at it. "Oh, oh, this is pretty brilliant! Not good, but clever."

And Molly? She just concentrated on her breathing, ignoring the man as he continued pointing the tool around the flat again and mumbling in some sort of one-sided conversation. She did catch a few words like "crashed ship", "regeneration", and "energy pulse". She swore to herself that her hallucination had just gotten weirder by the second.

Soon, the frown was gone on the man's face and was replaced by a cheerful grin. He looked at Molly and suggested, "Well, Molly Hooper, want to see a spaceship?" With that, he turned around and walked towards her door.

_I__'__m having one hell of a hallucination._ Molly thought. She was just going to answer "Don't be silly," when all the lights in the flat exploded. Yes, exploded. Not just gone off like what normal lights did. They _exploded_. Really loud, too.

They were enveloped in darkness and she let out a yelp of surprise when he touched her arm to stabilize her.

"Was that—?"

"Yes. That was the Cybermen, too." She was going to say earthquake, but the man continued, "They have gathered enough energy from here and now their spaceship is ready to launch. We need to stop them quickly. Otherwise the launching would flatten the whole area, they start an invasion, and everybody dies."

"Spaceship. Launching. And we die?" She looked at the door, then at him, and let out a shaky breath, "Al—Alright."

"Let's go then!" The man walked out of the door and she followed behind in a daze.

* * *

Whatever Molly thought her night after work would be like, it was certainly not on her apartment's rooftop battling some robotic creatures in an honest-to-god spaceship alongside a man who called himself The Doctor that fought by pointing around a screwdriver ("Not just a screwdriver, Molly, it's a sonic screwdriver!")

She had lost count on how many times she narrowly escaped from being blasted apart by some weird laser beams the robots fired. She was sure that she would be spotting some nasty bruises when this was all over; but she was so high on the adrenaline rush that she didn't care about any of that. So when the Doctor was surrounded, she didn't hesitate to save him by hitting the Cybermen repeatedly with a broom.

Whatever that worked, really.

When they reached what she thought was the control room, the Doctor pointed the screwdriver at the main control panel and said, "We need to stop the ship from launching."

"How?"

"We - Hold on." The Doctor scanned the panel again and frowned.

"Er, Doctor?"

"Yes?"

"What is that light?"

"Time running out."

"Oh."

Was she going to die in an alien spaceship? Actually, can one die in one's hallucination? Should she start panicking?

Meanwhile, the Doctor was trying to figure out how to stop the engine. He looked at the locked entrance and back to the panel. "They tried really hard to keep us out of the control room. It makes no sense if they know we can't command the ship." _Wait a minute_…

He pointed the screwdriver at the screen above him and grinned. _There!_

"MOLLY!" The Doctor's shout snapped her out of her reverie.

"Yes?"

"Put your hand on that scanner, Molly! It's a high-level biometric scanner that has a built-in security system which would recognise you as a full human and start the process of self-termination. It's a failsafe!"

She hovered her hand above the scanner and forced herself to stop thinking. She didn't think of the underlying implication that The Doctor wasn't a human being. She didn't want to think of the giant high-tech machine in front of her belonged to an alien spaceship. And she definitely didn't want to think about what "self-destruct" would do and what it meant for her human body.

Because if she slowed down to think about it, no doubt she would faint. No doubt at all. And fainting was not a choice. Not even in your own hallucination. What would Sherlock say?

She blinked a few time and berated herself, "Not right now," then pressed down on the scanner.

Then, her world turned black.

* * *

When she regained consciousness, it was to find the strange man waving his screwdriver (_sonic_ screwdriver, her mind provided) over her.

When he noticed she was awake, he smiled. "There! You're awake."

The man was still here. This hallucination was getting really, really real. Shouldn't it stop the moment she woke up? Or was this "waking up" a part of the hallucination, too?

Molly shook her head sharply in hope of getting rid of this weird ordeal her mind constructed. A few seconds later, she looked up again and the man was still there.

So, not a hallucination then.

"The robots?" she asked in a shaky voice.

"Not robots, Molly Hooper. Cybermen."

_Right__. __Cybermen._ Because that made all the sense in the world. She looked up in a daze and said, "Alien spaceship."

"Yes! And we just stopped a massive catastrophe to this area! Do you know the –"

"Are you an alien too?"

"I suppose. Anything that does not originate from the Earth is considered an alien, right? Then, yes, I'm an alien!" he smiled brightly.

_Right. A catastrophe__…__the self-destruct spaceship. And an alien right in front of me. Right_. She looked down at her hands again as the Doctor continued talking, and then her mind caught up.

Real, it was all real. All those robots and spaceship and explosion and sonic screwdriver and bow tie.

_Real. _

There were aliens hiding in her apartment. Aliens. A spaceship on the rooftop waiting to launch. Aliens. She'd fought them, with nothing but a broom she found on the rooftop. Aliens. And she was still alive.

_Aliens._

Oh, God.

Suddenly, she couldn't breathe. Everything seemed hazy and she felt really faint and—

Someone shook her shoulders, "Molly? Molly Hooper? Oh, no, not right now," then she found her head in between her knees in a customary shock-relieving position. "Breathe. Come on, Molly."

And she breathed.

When her mind cleared, she found that she didn't dislike this alien and fighting thing. Not one bit. It seemed to her that her life wasn't boring anymore. As a matter of fact, it was overly exciting and too much for a human who worked with logic and scientific knowledge all her life. But she couldn't bring herself to care about it because she, Molly Hooper, a mere pathologist with a monotony lifestyle, had just saved the entire area from an alien spaceship! Wasn't that exciting? What would Sherlock say?

She flinched inwardly when she found herself thinking about Sherlock again. _Stop thinking about him_.

"Well then."

Her head snapped up to look at the man she had been ignoring for the last few minutes, and whispered, "Yes?"

The Doctor just looked at her thoughtfully. "What do you think?"

"What?"

"This." The Doctor waved at the space around them and repeated, "What do you think?"

"Unbelievable, I suppose," she muttered. "Overwhelming, too." Was this how John felt when he went on chasing criminals with Sherlock?

_Stop __thinking about him!_

The Doctor nodded encouragingly. "Good! And?"

Molly shifted awkwardly on her couch. "Maybe, it is…quite…interesting?"

The man jumped from the chair suddenly, startling the disoriented pathologist, and clapped his hands together.

"Brilliant!"

"What is?"

"You! Molly Hooper, you! You. Are. Brilliant." Molly, being Molly, blushed profusely at the compliment, but the Doctor didn't notice and looked at his watch. "We still have time. Now, go pack a bag."

"What? Pack a bag? Where to?"

The Doctor paused on his way back to the blue box and looked back at her with a conspiratorial grin. "How do you like an adventure through time and space?"

She looked over to the police box and gave it a skeptical look, "It's a blue police box."

The Doctor just smiled. "Bigger on the inside, I promise."

"Time travel?"

The Doctor nodded eagerly. "Space travel, too. It's called TARDIS, Time And Relative Dimension In Space."

She frowned in confusion. "Why?"

"Why what?"

"Why are you asking me? Is it because your box landed in my living room? I'm not like you. I'm just a human, a weak human. Up until just now I didn't know time travel was possible, I didn't know there were aliens and spaceship and –"

The Doctor interrupted her. "Sometimes, human can be the strongest species across the entire universe. And you, Molly Hooper - " He stepped forward, placed his hands on the side of her head, and looked her in the eyes. " - you are definitely _not_ weak. You just have to believe in yourself."

When she didn't say anything, he let out a sigh. "Molly, Molly, Molly. You fought the Cybermen and saved my life back there. So why not?"

_Why not, indeed_. Molly thought. Her gaze flicked around her room, taking in the framed photographs of her parents above the fireplace, the television that she spent half of her monthly's salary on, the well-worn carpet, the broken mugs on the floor, and her gaze shifted back to the TARDIS.

Her parents had passed away in a car accident when she was nineteen and she had no other family members left. Since then, it had been just her against the world. Her life had fallen into a monotony routine. It'd became…inane.

She needed to get away and this crazy adventure might just be the thing.

But Molly was nothing, if not, responsible. "How about my work? I still have to check in tomorrow."

The Doctor gave a lopsided grin. "Time travel, remember? I could take you away for months on end and have you back here right at this moment. No charge!"

For a long while, Molly just stared at him, then at the innocent box and didn't answer. Whatever Molly was thinking, it was long enough for the Doctor to feel dread creeping in. He didn't realise until now how much he didn't want to travel alone anymore. He'd been lonely for so long. He was going to retract the offer when Molly let out a slightly breathless laugh, a grin creeping across her face.

"Can Toby come along?"

* * *

**AN: **Thank you for reading it. The mystery and fighting would be more intense in the subsequent chapters when Molly is more familiar with the idea of travelling through time and space. For now, she is just tagging along trying to make sense of everything happening around her.

Reviews are definitely welcome! I would really love to know what you think of it :)


	2. The Witch-hunt (Part I)

**DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN SHERLOCK AND DOCTOR WHO.**

I dedicate this particular adventure to **Y.L.**, my dear friend, for giving me the ideas that formed the basis of this adventure.

And of course, many, many, many thanks to my beta reader **Black Angel of the Underworld** for her marvellous proofreading skill and helpful comments.

Special thanks to the people who reviewed the previous chapter too, your comments keep the motivation going :)

I hope you like the story!

* * *

**The Witch-hunt (Part I)**

"_You__'__re wrong, you know. You do count. You__'__ve always counted and I__'__ve always trusted you. But you were right. I__'__m not okay.__"_

"_Tell me what__'__s wrong.__"_

"_Molly, I think I__'__m going to die.__"_

"_What do you need?__"_

"_If I wasn__'__t everything that you think I am, everything that I think I am, would you still want to help me?__"_

"_What do you need?__"_

"_You."_

"MOLLY!"

She shot up from the cushioned bench in the console room, her sleepiness gone in an instant as she looked around the TARDIS frantically, looking for trouble.

"What is it?"

"Nothing!" The Doctor grinned. He seemed to be taking pleasure in her agitation. "Just telling you that we had arrived at our new destination!"

She fell back onto the bench with a grunt and threw a pillow at him. "Not funny."

She didn't want to delve into the conversation she had with Sherlock. It seemed that no matter how long it had been since he left and how far away she was from home, her mind decided to bring her attention back to it once in a while.

However, the time in between the dreams had grown further apart every time it happened. So she supposed she was slowly getting over him and moving on with her life.

_Her life._

It seemed so much… _more_ right now than it ever did. She found a true friend in the Doctor. She went back in time to witness the age of dinosaurs, raging wars that split countries apart, Silurians who lived inside the Earth, and historical figures that she never thought would meet; she also went forward in time to witness humans moving on to live on other planets, the death of the planet she called home, and the birth of new stars in the universe. And not to forget saving worlds and civilizations seemed to be an everyday agenda.

She had lost count on how many near-death experiences she had, but the beauty and excitement of witnessing things that so few other humans in her time had the opportunity to made her felt privileged and humbled at the same time. The adventures she went on were sometimes deadly but they also taught her a lot of things. She wondered what her parents would say if they were still alive. Would they be proud of her? She hoped the answer was yes. From her memories, her parents were modest and unassuming people. They were down-to-earth and always took interest from everything that had happened in their lives. Most importantly, they had taught her to be appreciative of her life.

If they knew of her travels, she imagined they would be shocked and horrified. But she knew they would understand, even if it took them some time to do so, she knew they would. And she hoped they would approve of it.

She would never say she was an adventurous person and she doubted she would ever be one. Every experience she gained from the time and space travels were overwhelming; but, she had some knowledge on them now and she was getting better at dealing with them.

The Doctor went to pull her up, and said, "Well, come on, chop chop! New place, new adventure!"

"Alright." She put aside her thoughts and rubbed her eyes. "Where are we?"

"19th century London."

* * *

It turned out that they didn't land in London, but in a village on the outskirt of York. It didn't really matter as Molly was someone who was easily content and the marketplace of the village was quite interesting to explore. However, they soon noticed there was something really, really wrong with the village.

The night wind plastered Molly's cloak to her back and whipped the burgundy wool around her legs. She wished she was wearing her 21st century thick jumper, or that she had worn an extra shirt. Winter in the 19th century was much colder than what she was used to.

Then, they encountered Witch-hunt that should have ended almost a hundred years ago. In the year of 1850, something prompted the villagers to start burning "witches" again and the Doctor and Molly were there to find out why.

The weather was ruthless and snow was falling madly onto her slender body. The cloak really didn't do much for her against the cold wind. Once again, Molly reminded herself that she had to meet with a woman who would tell her more about the witch hunt.

She met the woman in the market today when she and the Doctor were asking around about the burnings. The woman then pulled her aside discreetly and told her to meet with her that night. So here she was, on the way to meet with the woman who would tell her who these supposed 'witches' were while the Doctor was off doing some 'investigations' with his sonic screwdriver.

She climbed over the short fence of a small cottage on the outskirt of the village and knocked on the back door. "Emily?"

The door creaked open and a beautiful woman stepped out, hugging her cloak around her bony frame. "Come with me, quickly. Don't let others see you."

Curious, Molly nodded and started to follow the woman into the forest.

"Where are we going?" Molly whispered.

"Hush," Emily told her firmly, "we mustn't attract attention."

Biting her lips nervously, Molly continued to advance further into the forest. She took the time to observe the woods while keeping an eye on the woman in front of her. Traveling with the Doctor for over six months (according to her watch in the TARDIS anyway) had taught her the importance of being observant of one's surrounding. You never knew when it would come in handy for a tricky situation.

Mist started to form in the forest and Molly lifted her dress to adopt a faster pace as it started to surround them. Thick snow covered the ground where tight clumps of tree roots were kept hidden from sight. The mist was getting thicker and where the moonlight reached it, it let out a silver light that was tinged with darkness, as if mixed with moving shadows. Combined with the thick snow, navigation became harder and harder as she walked deeper into the woods.

Suddenly, a tree root caught her foot and she stumbled. When she was back on her feet, she realized Emily was gone.

Queasiness settled in her stomach as she took careful steps forward and whispered, "Emily?"

She began to feel anxious when no reply came to her after a few calls. With a worried frown, she peered into the woods around her, trying to look through the thick fog that shrouded everything. Her uneven breaths sounded loudly in the silence of the woods. She should probably stay where she was so Emily could come back and find her.

As minutes passed and there still weren't any signs of Emily, she decided to look for tracks of where the woman had gone. She switched on her phone and used its screen light to look for any signs as to where to go.

However, there was no sign. Really no sign. The mist made tracking difficult but she should still be able to see some them. Molly knew she wasn't a good tracker, but she did learn something from her high school's scout team. However, she saw nothing. Even though the snow had stopped when they started their journey into the forest, there wasn't any footprint to be seen. The ground was smooth. So smooth that it was as if no living thing had ever disturbed the land before she came.

Suddenly, something flashed across in front of her and she jerked to a stop, holding herself still to see what it was.

There was _nothing_.

Just as she began to walk again, a sound came from behind her and she swirled around abruptly. She pointed her phone at that direction and again, there was nothing to be seen. Nothing but the gray mist.

Molly glanced around warily as she wrapped her cloak tighter against her body; she could almost feel someone was watching her from the mist. Letting out a quiet breath, she turned around and moved further into the woods. It baffled her greatly on why Emily insisted to meet here. With the thick mist and possible predators stalking around the forest, surely it wasn't an ideal location?

She put her hands in front of her, and stopped when she touched the bark of a tree. Slowly, she moved from one tree to another, feeling slightly better that she had something to guide her in a land she wasn't familiar with.

"Emily?" She was just stopping to look around for her guide again when something fell across her shoulders. Frightened, she thrashed about, trying to get away from whatever it was in the mist. "Emily?"

She then let out a scream when she felt something grabbed her ankles and fell to the ground. She kicked her legs at the thing and felt nothing but the mist. She got up from the floor quickly, her face pale and her breathing labored. Her mind was clouded with fear as she tried to figure out where else she could go. The mist remained thick and it had gotten really hard to breathe.

Dread gathered in the pit of her mind; she ran.

Having completely no idea where she was running to or what she was running from, Molly focused her gaze on the ground, trying her best to avoid tripping herself again. She ran even faster when she heard noises behind her and cursed the dress she had to hold up to keep out of the way.

Molly yelped when something moved in front of her. Something dark.

_Shadows,_ she told herself. _Only shadows_. However, despite her words, she made a run for another direction.

A hollow laughter came from right in front of her and she continued to run. She had no idea how long she had been running but her stomach clenched in terror as voices started to come from every direction. Clutching the dress tightly, she continued to run and jumped when she felt something cold on her arm. The feeling was gone the moment she looked down at it.

She had to stop.

Whatever it was in the mist, it was toying with her - and it was working.

Because she was terrified.

Absolutely terrified.

The same hollow laughter sounded again. And this time, it was right behind her.

Molly closed her eyes tightly, refused to turn around. She stiffened her legs to stop herself from moving away when she felt something brush against the side of her face. When the voice spoke again, it was in front of her. It was eerily soft, nothing more than a whisper.

"Molly Hooper."

Against her better judgment, she opened her eyes. But there was nothing, just the gray mist she had been escaping from.

Then the voice spoke again, this time louder and more…_solid_. "Molly Hooper."

"Who are—" She took a deep breath. "What are you?"

"Molly Hooper," the voice continued as if Molly had not spoken. "A child whose memories lost in the universe. Lost in the embrace of Time. Tell me, Molly Hopper, how is the Doctor?"

She wanted to turn to _see_ but she realized she couldn't move. "How do you know the Doctor?"

"Oh…" the voice drifted away as if in remembrance. "We were old friends, me and the Doctor…very old friends."

"Were?"

"Oh, yes." It didn't give any further explanation on that.

"What do you mean by 'memories lost'?" When there wasn't any reply, she asked again, "Tell me."

"We shall meet again, Molly Hooper." The voice was like an icy breeze whispering in the back of her head, a thin, cold murmur working its way into her mind. Then it was fading, just like the mist was fading from the whole of the forest as if it was never there. Only silence remained.

"No! Wait…Wait!" Molly almost sought the voice to ask for answers, but remembering what she had to do, she stopped herself.

Sighing, she resumed her search for Emily.

* * *

It was only moments later when she found Emily standing at a clearing with the other villagers. Similar to the other parts of the forest, the clearing's ground was covered in snow. The trees were not as dense and the clearing was lit with both moonlight and the torches the villagers were carrying in their hands.

Molly's relief was profound as she moved forward to reach the woman. "Emily! Where were—"

Her speech was cut off when the villagers started to surround her. There were at least a dozen of them, men and women, each holding a torch or some sort of spear in their hands, with knives hung at their belts, and some even carried a simple, small shield that was made of hides.

They were prepared for a fight.

_Why on earth_—

Molly studied the villagers with increasing unease when she noticed their hostile expressions.

"Wait! Wait! What is happening? What have—" She stopped abruptly when she saw a pyre being prepared on the forest floor.

It was a trap, she realized. Emily was used to lure her into the forest for an execution.

She closed her eyes tightly as she forced her breathing to calm down. Her hands dropped to her sides limply as she gave up the idea of fighting. There was no way she could overpower all of them.

Taking a deep breath, she raised her gaze to the village chief. "I am not a witch. I just wanted to know what had happened."

The chief took a step closer but still kept a fairly large distance between them. "If you're not guilty, then why did you run away?"

_What?_

"I didn't run away. I was lost in the mist! I lost track of Emily!"

The chief's face darkened. "There wasn't any mist in the forest. Now stop lying, you filthy witch!"

_Forget the mist_, she told herself. Apparently, it was only her who could see the mist at all.

"Please," her voice shook, "you have to believe me. I'm not a witch. I'm a traveller—"

"Cease the nonsense!" At the chief's signal, one of the men gave her a sneering glance and hauled her to the pyre.

Her struggle was in vain as the man was much stronger than her. A solitary tear rolled down her cheek when she realised she was going to be burnt. She was going to die in 1850 and no one in her time will ever know her. Her entire existence would be erased and Molly Hooper would never exist. She wondered where the Doctor was and how sad it was that Sherlock wouldn't remember her at all. He wouldn't even notice that she died.

She licked her lips and wished she could think of something. She _cannot_ die here. She needed to find a way to escape this. She _had_ to.

"Wait!" Her head jerked up to look at the chief in the eyes. "If you kill me, a human, you will be a murderer. All of you!" she spared a glance at the other villagers who froze momentarily at her words and she continued, "Will be murderers. Every single one of you."

She was on the pyre now, having her hands tied to the wooden bar behind her. "Can you bear it? Can you - " She let out a weak chuckle. "Can all of you live the rest of your lives with your hands stained with _my_ blood?"

She focused her gaze on the chief again and pleaded, "Please. Let me go. I'm no witch. You're making a grave mistake."

When she saw a flash of hesitation in his eyes, she pressed softly, "Please."

The chief looked uncomfortable as he fiddled with his coat. He looked at Molly then at his people again. After a while, when he cleared his throat and spoke, "Perhaps we could—"

"She's a witch, I tell ya!" someone from the back of the crowd exclaimed.

Molly flinched as a loud roar of agreement rose from the frightening crowd.

"Burn her!"

"Kill her!"

Molly's head hung in despair as the villagers began to move forward with their torches.

Suddenly, a man who was standing behind in the crowd cried out and fell, as he noticed a white figure emerged from the thick of woods and moving towards them. A woman screamed, and abruptly the clearing rang with frantic cries and shouts.

The village chief took out a long knife and pointed it at the advancing figure. "Dear Lord, another witch!"

Hearing that, Molly took a long look at the supposed 'witch'.

It was a woman who seemed to be in her early twenties, dressed fully in white. Her once beautiful face was thin and gaunt, framed by her wiry dark hair. But what troubled Molly the most was her eyes.

The whole of the woman's eyes were white and seemed to glow. But they didn't carry any expression. Instead, Molly would say she looked…empty. Staring at her eyes was like staring into a void of nothingness. The woman didn't seem to notice the hostile villagers at all. Instead, she just kept on walking and only attacked when someone touched her.

In the midst of chaos, someone dropped a torch on the pyre and it was starting to burn. Molly shouted and pulled at her bindings when she felt the fire growing underneath her. "Help!"

Her heart pounded, trying to beat its way out of her, and every pulse gushed with fear that she was going to be burned alive.

She pulled at her bindings again to no avail. It was no use. Her hands were too tightly bound behind her.

"Help me!" she shouted again as the fire had gotten closer to her. Soon, the fire would reach her and she would be burned.

_I'm going to die_, she thought. _I'm really going to die here_.

Sudden movements behind her made Molly turn her head. "Doctor!"

"Come on, Molly. I'm sure you don't want to get roasted!"

The man pointed his sonic screwdriver at the bindings and got them off immediately. He grabbed her away from the pyre just seconds before the fire reached the top.

"Doctor!" Molly threw her arms around the Doctor and they hugged each other tightly.

They pulled apart and the Doctor looked at her wrists. "Alright?"

"Yeah. It's fine." She nodded. "You're here. You saved me!" Tears sprung from her brown eyes as she let out the pent up emotions of nearly being burned to death.

The Doctor patted her head gently and pressed a kiss to her forehead. "I am really insulted that you thought I would leave you here to die, Molly Hooper. Come on, it seems Team Executor will not be roasting anyone tonight. And I really, really don't like fire." He frowned at the burning pyre, then looked back at Molly with an anticipated expression on his face. "Well then, let's take a look at this 'witch'."

Molly debated to tell him about the voice in the mysterious mist. But she dispensed the thought when it was clear that their priority should be the witch. She decided that she would tell him about it when they were back on the TARDIS.

"Right," Molly managed a weak response before they approached the woman.

* * *

AN: Thank you for reading it! I hope you like how the story is going. Reviews are very welcomed! :D


	3. The Witch-hunt (Part II)

**DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN SHERLOCK AND DOCTOR WHO.**

A big giant thanks to my beta reader **Black Angel of the Underworld**.

And special Thank Yous to the people who reviewed, favorited, and followed the story, you guys deserve a TARDIS :D

I hope you like the story!

* * *

**The Witch-hunt (Part II)**

"So what do we know about the 'witches'? They went missing, they came back, they didn't age and have white glow-y eyes. Oh! And a knack for attacking people."

They were back in the TARDIS and the Doctor was fiddling with the console to track the signal he'd picked up from the woman earlier. And Molly was just really grateful that she was able to change into some clean clothes and have a cup of tea. She was British, after all.

She looked at the Doctor who was mostly talking to himself and asked, "Do you believe in black magic?"

"I believe in science," came the reply.

"So you don't believe in magic?"

"It could be real, I suppose." He gave a nonchalant shrug. "But I prefer science."

The Doctor walked around the console, typed something down, and looked at the screen. "Everything in the universe has power in itself. They could be activated when the right energy is being transported to them. Different species believes in different thing and the belief gives the thing power. Just like humans, you believe in mathematics, you use different numbers, produce different codes, and use them for different purposes. The formula works, so you keep on believing in it."

Molly sipped her tea. "So you're saying that magic is maths?"

"No! Yes! I mean... No! Not quite. Actually, I don't know. It's very complicated." He pointed his screwdriver at the screen and typed something. "Magic could be an energy that forms from a particular sequence of numbers, words, or even how the stars are arranged in the sky. So it could be magic like Harry Potter magic or it could just be science."

"You read Harry Potter?" Molly looked at him with wide eyes.

"Why not? I especially like the idea of the Time Turners. Turn the devices a few times and Yowza! Time travelling! You don't even need a TARDIS to do that!" At this, he touched the console lovingly and mumbled something along the line, "I'm not being mean, girl. You're still the best." He then continued, "And I cried when the Snape fellow died. I told the story to the Sontarans once and they didn't appreciate it at all. It was all war, war, war for them." His nose wrinkled in disapproval.

Molly's mind started to swim with thoughts that seemed to contradict each other on every turn, but she decided to wave them all aside to focus on the fact that they escaped from being burned to death by a bunch of frantic villagers.

She thought back to the films and smiled. "Well, some people would say that your screwdriver is a wand." She made some wand movements that she'd seen in the Harry Potter films. "A really weird wand with buzzing noise."

"Hey!" The Doctor hugged the tool to his chest and said, "Don't insult my sonic screwdriver. It is sonic! Not some wood thing that release energy when you wave it around and 'Kaboom'"

"I'm sure they don't 'Kaboom'."

The Doctor rolled his eyes and sighed exasperatedly. "Fine, fine. Whatever. My sonic screwdriver is the best. It is cool! Like my bowtie! Oh…Oh! There it is, the signal! It's from the forest!"

Molly's stomach dropped when she realized they were going back to the forest again. Then she remembered about the mist.

"Doctor, there was this—"

"We have to check it out!" The Doctor jumped and rubbed his hands together in a decidedly childish manner.

Molly knew there was no stopping him. She would just remember to tell him about it later.

"Let's go!" he spoke excitedly.

"Alright."

* * *

Molly did not like this at all.

A mansion stood tall in the middle of the forest, bathing in the moonlight. The signal they picked up originated from here.

A wall made of pale grey stone streaked with silver surrounded the mansion. It swept out into a circle, curving to back of the place, and Molly had to wonder how far the wall was built to enclose the enormous manor.

All along the wall's length ferns were grown, rising from the forest ground and curved onto the wall, gleaming in white as the moonlight reflected on its' leaves. Inside the wall was the haunted mansion that imposed its dark presence onto every person who ever laid eyes on it.

Molly had overheard some of the villagers whisper about this place when the Doctor was checking the 'witch' earlier on. No one remembered when it first appeared. To the villagers, it was just there one day and every person who was curious enough to explore the place never returned. Some said it was cursed, some said it was a government conspiracy, and some spoke of a man-eating monster. Years had passed and no one dared to speak of it.

The Doctor and Molly stood a fair distance away from the wall. Molly chewed her lips and unconsciously rubbed at her bruised wrists while the Doctor checked for any energy signal.

_It's not natural_, she thought, her gaze flickering from one tower to the other. No matter how long she stared at it, the edges of the mansion blurred and she had a distinctive feeling that someone (or something) was staring right back at her from within the terrifying abode.

It also didn't take Molly and the Doctor long to notice something was wrong with this part of the woods. The wind howled like it did moments ago. The whizzing sound of the sonic screwdriver echoed loudly in the forest. No birds sang, no squirrels chattered, and no leaves were muffled by the strong wind.

It was eerily silent.

"Molly!"

Molly was snapped out of her thought by a loud exclamation from the Doctor.

"Look at this, Molly. This is brilliant!"

He was touching something invisible, and his eyes were wide in wonder and appreciation. She went over to him and placed her right hand where his was a moment ago.

She frowned. "There's nothing here."

"What? Can't you feel it?" He went to poke at the invisible thing with his screwdriver. "It's a barrier, Molly. But it's not a force shield that is impregnable. It is a barrier that allows people moving in and out." He put his hand on the same place again. "It's…" one side of his mouth quirked upwards, "something new."

"What for? Why a barrier if you don't intend to block something out?"

"I don't know." He grinned. "Let's find out!"

He then crossed the barrier and disappeared right in front of Molly.

"Doctor!"

* * *

Inside the barrier, the Doctor wasted no time in scanning the place and found the time energy reading to be off the roof.

"Molly, look—" he stopped abruptly when he noticed that Molly didn't follow through.

He took another reading of the house and stepped back through the barrier.

* * *

"Doctor! Where have you been?"

"I was just inside the barrier."

"I know you're inside the barrier. But what happened? You've been gone for a day!"

"_What?_"

"A day! I couldn't get past the barrier and I've waited here for you for a day."

"But I was inside the barrier for no more than a minute!" The Doctor tapped his screwdriver against his chin; his brows frowned in deep thought. "Interesting…two different time streams separated by a barrier running parallel with each other."

"Doctor!"

He hummed distractedly.

"Doctor!"

He looked at Molly and smiled. "Molly, I think we just solved why the missing persons never aged."

Molly touched the empty place, "The barrier?"

"Yes. It's what separated the time difference. They could be in the house for a few days and years just passed on the outside."

"So the barrier does only to separate the difference, but what causes the difference?"

"Good question, Molly. Time runs differently on the inside and the outside of the universe. The last time I saw a time difference like this was when a person got stuck in a pocket universe. But this! This is not a pocket universe and it's not even another planet. You see you can open a dimensional portal to another planet that time runs relatively to each other. But this…this is new."

"Alien's science then?"

"It could be…but it's very unlikely. No technology could create a time difference like this. My screwdriver is not picking up any time energy signal here on the outside. It's weird."

Molly shifted from one foot to the other, hoping she could at least be of some help. Her knowledge of time and space were like dust compared to a giant. But still, she focused her thought back to the conversations they had since they travelled together.

_Oh_.

She turned around and put her hand on the Doctor's arm to stop his muttering. "You know…you told me before about a time rift in Cardiff. Can a time rift causes a time difference like this?"

The Doctor stared at her for a moment and his expression quickly lightened up by a wide grin. He hugged Molly tightly before exclaiming, "Molly Hooper you are one amazing woman, you know that! A time rift! Of course, that's why the energy reading went off the roof when I was inside the barrier! Oh Molly, Molly."

Molly blushed at the compliment and smiled. "I do try."

"Come on, someone must have built this mansion on the rift. We must find where it is and close it."

"Can you close a time rift?"

"I don't know." With that, he grabbed Molly's hand and together they stepped into the barrier.

* * *

On a side note, they really shouldn't have gone into an alien territory unprepared.

But again, when did the Doctor do anything logical?

Molly sighed when she looked down at her wrists, which were strapped to the sides of a slab. She moved her hands to test the bindings and flinched when the rough material bit harshly into her bruised flesh.

The room she was trapped in was empty, illuminated only by the wall lamp beside the door. By the looks of it, it was an old storeroom with broken barrels and torn boxes compiled in corners of the room. Rain, together with the cold wind, was blowing in freely through the broken pane of the dusty windows. However, dilapidated the things were, they were the only things fit in the current timeline.

Molly was confined on what looked to be a surgical table. Beside her were monitors and gadgets that one should not find in the 19th century. As a matter of fact, they didn't belong on Earth, at all.

Before she and the Doctor were caught and separated, they were inspecting a woman they found in one of the many rooms in the mansion.

"_She's empty."_

"_Doctor?"_

"_She's empty, Molly. Look at her. There's nothing left in her mind!"_

"_What do you mean?"_

"_It's like someone wiped out everything inside her mind. No memories, no senses, nothing!"_

"_They made her into an empty shell. But why?"_

"_I don't know. Maybe they need her knowledge or…"_

"_Or?"_

"_Or they made her to contain something else."_

She was snapped out of her reverie by the opening of the door. A humanoid creature walked into the room and Molly remembered the Doctor called them Xeraphin.

The creature that was standing in the middle of the room had grey skin and red stripes on its head (she had no idea whether the Xeraphin in front of her was a he or a she).

Molly forced herself to calm down when the Xeraphin picked up a scalpel from the table.

"What are you doing?"

"_Nothing you need to be afraid of."_ The creature didn't speak but there was a voice in her head. It was then that Molly realized she was talking to a psychic alien.

"Are you going to take away my mind, just like what you did to the other humans?"

The Xeraphin cocked its head to one side, and the voice spoke inside Molly's head again. "_I'm helping my species to survive."_

"By taking over the humans?"

"_You do not understand."_

"Then explain it to me."

This time, the humanoid creature didn't answer. Instead, it just walked towards Molly and placed the scalpel on her head.

* * *

When the doctor came to, he realised he was being strapped to a chair. And the thing in front of him was definitely a Xeraphin.

"Oh, you are beautiful!" The Doctor's eyes sparkled with appreciation, just like he always did whenever he encountered a different species.

"_Greetings, Time Lord."_

The Doctor looked around for his sonic screwdriver and found it perched on the table on the opposite side of the room. He looked back at the Xeraphin. "I see you've put your psychic ability to use already."

The Xeraphin were highly psychic humanoid beings, able to possess different minds and exert a hypnotic influence over people if they wanted. They were also highly intelligent and able to wield psychokinetic energy.

"_Why are you here, Doctor?"_

"What is your name?"

"_Zardox, Doctor."_

"Well, I can ask the same of you, Zardox."

"_The planet we were residing in was destroyed in a war. The explosion was so great that it caused a wormhole in the universe and it brought our spacecraft here."_

"Ah, the time rift. Beautiful thing, wonderful radiation. I should bring TARDIS here for fuel." Then he looked down at his bound hands, "Actually, maybe not. Do you know about the different time streams?"

"_Yes."_

"The barrier?"

"_Not our doing, Doctor. It was here after our spacecraft crash-landed."_

The two of them stared at each other for a moment. Then the silence was broken by a stroke of lighting outside the mansion. The weather was bad in the village with the presence of a time rift in the area, but it was worse when it got nearer to the rift. The charges that swam around the wormhole would wreak havoc with the local charges the longer the rift remained open.

"What are you doing with the humans, Zardox?"

"_We did nothing."_ Zardox's voice answered quietly in the Doctor's mind.

"Don't lie to me, Zardox." The Doctor's eyes narrowed in irritation. "Your spacecraft crash landed so there must be a whole lot of radiation from the explosion itself. I've seen it before; the radiation from the crash alone would destroy your bodies. So how is it that you're standing here right now in your corporeal form?"

When the Xeraphin remained silent, the Doctor continued, "You built this place because you need to house your gestalt forms after your bodies were destroyed. That's why you used the humans isn't it? You wiped away their minds, together with their senses and consciousness, made them into empty shells so they became inhabitable for you. You will slaughter an entire humankind for this!"

"_It is all for the continuation of my species, Doctor. Surely one such as yourself would understand it?"_

The Doctor leaned forward despite the bindings, his expression closed off in a moment of anger. "No, I don't. I'm the last of my species and you don't see me going around killing humans. So don't insult me!"

"_We do what we have to do."_

"You can regenerate if you wait long enough, Zardox. You know this!"

The Xeraphin turned away from the Doctor and started to pace the room. _"We are a time-sensitive species, Doctor. The time rift saved us from the planet explosion but it is also poisoning our minds. We will be destroyed completely if our minds fail. We need bodies if we want to live."_

"The rift would close by itself."

"_Too long, Doctor. By the time it does, my entire race would be gone."_

"I tell you, Zardox. You cannot go on wiping out humans' minds and possessing their bodies. I will not allow it."

"_Are you really willing to see another species goes into extinction, Doctor?"_

"If you give me time, I can help you with the rift."

"_It will be too late."_

"There is no need for this, Zardox. Tell me where my friend is. We will help you with the problem."

"_I'm afraid not, Doctor."_

"Listen here and listen well. I've put a lot of effort into this planet, and these people, they have potential. They are an extraordinary species and I will see them unharmed. Most importantly, they are _precious_ to me. So tell me now, where is my friend?"

"_I would do anything, Doctor, anything to preserve my species."_

"As I said, this planet is under my protection. I would do anything to protect the humans, too. Tell me where you are keeping her."

Zardox eyed the Doctor warily and motioned for the Xeraphin that was guarding the door. After a silent exchange, the guard nodded and walked out from the room swiftly.

"_I'm afraid it is too late now, Doctor."_

* * *

Molly felt the beginnings of an odd sort of relief when another Xeraphin swept into the room, thereby stopping the _really_ sharp scalpel that was aiming for her head.

However, her relief was short-lived when the Xeraphin walked out of the room after a few minutes and the scalpel was once again in close proximity with her head.

Oh, well. There was one thing she could try. She wasn't a seasoned fighter like River or John, but she did learn a bit or two from her previous travels with the Doctor. While she knew the move which she had in mind was highly effective but could cause her greater injury if misplaced, she knew she didn't have any other choices. She figured the Doctor was also restrained somewhere in the mansion and she wasn't going to let the Xeraphin take away her mind if she could help it.

When the creature got nearer to her to get a clear cut, Molly swung her head upwards quickly to strike its head. The Xeraphin let out a surprised yelp before it fell to the ground, unconscious.

Molly sent a silent thanks to everything above when she saw the scalpel lying near her right hand. She stretched her hand out as humanly far as possible to reach it and started to cut the bindings inwardly immediately after.

She sat up quickly when her right hand was free, but had to lie back down when the head rush got too bad. She wondered briefly if she got a concussion by head butting the alien.

After freeing herself of the bindings, she sat on the table for a moment to calm her heartbeats and work blood circulation back to her limbs.

Her breath caught in her throat when the wooden floor outside creaked as something moved beyond the door. Her mouth went dry as she stared at the door in horror. When the doorknob turned, she quickly climbed through the window and grabbed one of the ridges from the wall to stop her from falling to her death.

Using the ridges, she moved across the outer wall on the third floor she was in, all the while trying not to look down from where she was hanging. The cold rain was beating down relentlessly on her; she tried not to look up too much since the water stung her eyes. More than once the rain made her grip on the ridges slip and she had to grab onto another one quickly. When she reached the other end of the wall, she slowly grabbed a vertical drainpipe and used it to slip down to the ground. Again, her fingers slipped and her descent would've been quick. She had to let go of the pipe and jump before hitting the ground.

When noises came from above, she cowered against the side of the mansion, encasing herself in the dark. Inside the room, the Xeraphin searched for her frantically.

She forced herself to stay in a crouch, moving silently along the outer wall, and came to a stop when she was next to a window. She peered inside carefully, just at the corner of the windowpane. The room inside was dark and she couldn't make out much even with the help of the moonlight.

Decided not to risk it, she moved again until she reached another window. This time, a torch that perched on the sidewall lighted the room. The door hung askew, crawl marks and some alien gadgets dully revealed in the candle lighting, but most importantly, the room was empty.

Drawing a deep, ragged breath, she climbed through the broken window, minding the broken glasses around the wooden pane. Once inside, she cautiously moved to grab one of the wooden planks that was strewn across the floor and planted her ear on the door to listen for any sounds from the other end.

After a minute, she opened the door slowly and grimaced when it creaked sharply. The opened door revealed a stone hallway that held a rough, unpainted door at the other end. The hallway was dim, its grey walls were covered in colourless tapestries that held some weird writings, and the air was dank and still.

Molly reached the door quickly and again, she listened for any noise. Hearing none, she gripped the wooden plank tightly in one hand and the doorknob in the other, hoping she would find the Doctor soon.

* * *

Meanwhile…

"What are you doing?"

"_You said you would help, Doctor."_

"Well, when I said I'll help, I didn't mean by throwing me into the rift itself."

* * *

Thank you for reading it! Reviews are very welcomed! They are my inspirations :)

And visit me on Tumblr if you have time, you can ask questions or give me prompts over there.

Until next time!


	4. The Witch-hunt (Part III)

**A/N:** I am so sorry for the late update! I was busy (mid-term exam), and my beta was equally busy, so it took us a while to get this chapter out. But it's finally here, and I hope you will enjoy reading it.

Again, many thanks to my lovely beta **Black Angel of the Underworld** for making this readable (the first draft was really quite hellish).

This chapter also marks the end of the witch-hunt. Enjoy!

* * *

**The Witch-hunt (Part III)**

Molly bit her lips worriedly as she walked down the stairs, seeing that almost an hour had passed and there was still no sign of the Doctor.

A lamp hung over the basement stairs; its light illuminated the stone-walled cellar beneath the manor, showing electronic sensors along the walls, and across the floor were several crates of metal devices that Molly knew nothing about. However, what caught her eyes weren't the alien gadgets that were scattered around the place, but the iron door that was located at the far end of the room.

The door was locked from the outside and covered with numerous silver chains. Each chain was bolted at all corners of the door and linked to what looked to be a biometric scanner.

Whatever it was, the Xeraphins had taken extra measures to keep it behind that door.

And Molly wasn't sure if she wanted to know what it was.

Just when she was turning around to head back up the place, a deep voice rang harshly in her mind, causing her to jump and drop the wooden plank she had in her hand.

"_Human." _

The voice was loud and it rankled her mind. Molly clutched her head with both hands as the wave of pain subsided.

The voice spoke again, gentler now, _"It is not wise to stay here any longer, human. I suggest you leave this place now."_

As the pain faded, Molly looked around the room and saw no Xeraphin.

"Show yourself."

When there wasn't any reply, she turned her focus to the locked door and eyed it warily. "Are…are you in there?"

She took a step forward but immediately stopped as the voice spoke again in her mind, _"I said leave now."_

"Why did they lock you up?"

When there wasn't any reply, she took another step forward.

"_One more step and the others will be alerted of your presence."_

Molly looked at the sides and saw the first electronic sensor blink at her proximity. She swiftly took a step back and it stopped.

"_My name is Roan."_

Molly kept her gaze on the locked door. "You're one of them, aren't you? But why are you here?"

"_You are looking for a man called the Doctor."_

"Yes. But how—"

"_Can you do it?"_

"What?"

"_Can you stop us?"_

Molly's brows furrowed in confusion. "I…I can try."

There was a moment of silence before Roan spoke again. _"The planet my species was residing in was destroyed in a war. The planet explosion tore open a fabric of the universe and created a wormhole that brought our spacecraft here through time and space._

"_The spacecraft crash landed on this planet in this time and the crash itself created a source of radiation that destroyed our corporeal form. We turned into a gestalt form as a result. We then constructed this place to house the ship and us until the radiation waned._

"_But it wasn't that easy. We are a time-sensitive species, Molly Hooper. The proximity to the time rift is slowly poisoning our mind. And the time energy from the rift caused a split in our personalities, dividing us into good and evil. The others, they wanted to possess the human mind to return to our corporeal bodies. I did not agree."_

"Split personalities? How?"

"_We are of a hive mind. No matter what forms we take, our minds are always connected to each other through the psychic link. The time energy managed to seep into our mind connections and affect one side of the link."_

"So you're the good one?"

"_As a matter of speaking, yes. Zardox locked me up when I protested against his method. He put a device on me to stop me from forming similar connection to the others. But the device also protected my mind. It prevented my mind from being tainted by the time rift, like what happened to them."_

"Do you mean that you don't want to kill us? The humans?"

"_We were never an aggressive or violent race, Molly Hooper. The rift interfered with our yearning to become a proper species and made us the monsters we are today." _

"You want us to stop the others."

"_Yes."_

"Will you help?"

There was a pause before he answered, _"…Yes."_

"Okay." She took a deep breath and let it out. "Alright. So…what do I do?"

* * *

The Doctor knew the Xeraphin were taking him to the time-rift because the nearer they were to the destination, the stronger the disturbance. Not to forget, he could almost taste the expanding time-energy in the air. As they walked, the walls shook occasionally as the ground rumbled under their feet.

There were humans in the rooms he passed; eyes wide and bodies stilled, securely strapped to the beds they were on. What intrigued him was the machines that were attached to each of them.

"You didn't just wipe away their minds, you collected their brain waves. Why?"

The Doctor focused his attention on the machines when they passed by another room. The readings on the screens were oddly familiar to him. "You need their minds empty. You don't need to collect their brainwaves. Why do you need the brainwaves? Why?" His brows furrowed as he muttered quietly to himself.

Suddenly, he looked up at the Xeraphin walking beside him. "Oh!" He grinned. "Oh, that is clever, Zardox, very clever."

When there was no reaction from the Xeraphin, he continued, "The first ones that gone missing were just experimental subjects, weren't they? You ran tests after tests to find the perfect frequency for you to wipe their minds and take over their bodies, and you succeeded! But it was too slow, wasn't it? To catch them one by one. You didn't have the time for that, not with the time-energy leakage. And that's why you are extrapolating their brainwaves – the _human_ brainwaves – to something that will perform a mass deletion on the human race. You are building a transmitter!"

He knew he was right when Zardox said, "And you will not stop us, Doctor."

* * *

Molly's head hurt.

Her eyes were burning and her brain felt like it was going to explode. By all reason, she should have passed out from the psychic transfer – she should have – yet her will was keeping her on her feet.

"_The restrictor they put on me will pick up on the energy signal from the transfer and it will alert the others of your presence here."_

"_How long do I have?"_

"_You have three minutes."_

She heard the alarm as soon as the transfer was done, and ran through the many corridors in the manor with her mind overflowing with the newly acquired knowledge.

Her mind was a jumble of information and it was difficult to sort them out. It took her almost a minute to bring forward the map to the crashed ship.

The spaceship was at the lowest level of the manor. The time-sensitive species couldn't go back to the ship after it crashed because of the radiation. But as a human, the radiation would only have a minimal effect on her.

There was a mind crystal in the ship. A crystal that kept the Xeraphin' psychic power alive. And they'd built the manor around the ship to protect it. However, the one thing that was sustaining their psychic power was also the one thing that could destroy it. Her purpose was to get to the crystal and sever the psychic connections between the Xeraphin.

Following Roan's instructions, Molly was able to avoid coming across any Xeraphin and found the ship quickly.

She'd seen the spacecraft in her mind. A cylindrical-shaped spacecraft that was more than a hundred meters long, made up with tens of thousands of components harvested from the Xeraphin' home planet. Its silver-chrome surface metal made the ship looked like a shining star while in deep space, surreal and beautiful.

However, looking upon the crashed ship now, it was a miracle that the Xeraphin had survived the crash at all. The spaceship, once a beautiful and majestic machine, had dug itself deep into the ground. Molly could only see one end of it as the other end was deeply embedded in the ground. The fluid shield was gone and the bright skin beneath was a burnt and charred waste.

The door was sealed. Molly touched the panel beside it and hastily retracted her hand when the surface burned her skin. She shed her jacket and wrapped it around her hand to open the panel. After the crash, all the computers had gone offline, with the ship channeling all power to the main control room that housed the mind crystal.

However, a secondary security protocol would be activated as soon as the ship detected her intrusion. It would send out as many automated defense bots it has to kill her. With that in mind, she rerouted the power to the door quickly and set to find the way to the main control room.

After a quick check on the ship's schematic, she located the damaged parts that she could not access. All the doors on the main pathway to the control room were sealed and it would take too much time for her to override every single one of them. The tunnels were her only option.

The tunnels were built in between walls and floors for easy access to the circuitry that kept the ship moving. Molly opened a floor hatch and climbed down a ladder through the innards of the ship.

The tunnels were dark. Molly walked through the narrow corridor as fast as she could without tripping on anything she couldn't see.

Suddenly, there was a click behind her, and she whirled around, her hand going to the Xeraphin gun that Roan told her to take along. It must be the defense bots.

The Xeraphin weapon did not work like an ordinary gun. Even though it was shaped like a gun, it released energy beams instead of bullet. Her hand shook when she grabbed it. She had never fired a weapon before.

There was another click from the same spot and Molly pressed her back against the wall, exposing as little of herself to the thing as possible.

When the next click sounded, it was closer. She took a few steps backwards cautiously and all of a sudden, the corridor was illuminated with harsh beams of red lights and an alarm echoed loudly in the tunnels.

The flashing lights allowed her to see there were at least seven bots in front of her. When she took another step back, the bots whirred and advanced.

* * *

They were standing on the platform overseeing the time rift below when the alarm blared.

When Zardox tensed and turned around sharply to look at the others, the Doctor twisted his body around fast enough to detach the hold the Xeraphin had on him.

He didn't use his hypnotic ability often because it drained his energy and it only allowed him to glean the information that was on the surface of a mind, but there were no alternatives in this situation so he quickly used it to put the Xeraphin behind him to sleep and turned around to face Zardox, who already had a gun pointed at him.

He sighed exasperatedly. Where was his sonic screwdriver when he needed it?

"This is not you, Zardox. Don't you see? You are poisoned. You wouldn't want to be what you are right now if it wasn't because your proximity to the time energy."

"_I do what I have to do. I have to protect my race."_

"I can help you."

"_You are a Time Lord. A contact with a complicated space-time event like you would seal the rift forever. "_

"And what would you do when the rift is closed, Zardox? Continue what you are doing now? Killing the humans? Can't you see? Your mind is already poisoned!"

"_You are wrong."_

"Your race is one of the most peaceful races in the entire universe, Zardox. You would not be doing this if you're in your right mind."

"_You are wrong."_

"Don't do this." The Doctor's hand crept behind him slowly to look for anything that would distract Zardox.

His fingers touched something and he threw it at the unsuspecting Xeraphin.

Zardox moved to avoid the projection and the Doctor dodged the misfired laser beam from the gun. He tackled Zardox to the ground and placed his hands at the side of the Xeraphin's head, rendering him unconscious.

In a matter of seconds, he found the source of the alarm and memorized the schematics of the manor.

* * *

Molly was now three levels below the control room. She stumbled forward down the narrow corridor, her legs burning with exhaustion and heart threatening to break free from her chest.

She was trapped. There was no hatch for her to escape aside from the one she came from.

She leaned against the wall and breathed deeply through her nose, bringing up the blueprint in her mind again to look for any other way out.

"**Molly? Can you hear me?"**

Hearing the familiar voice, she was afraid to be hopeful. For all she knew, it could be an auditory hallucination.

"Doctor?"

"**Oh, Molly Hooper. How did you know how to get into this ship?"**

"Doctor?"

"**Yes, Molly. Why do you keep on calling me? Oh, I've got my sonic screwdriver back!"**

For the first time since they entered the manor, Molly smiled. "It's you!"

"**Of course it's me! Now –"** The sentence was cut off and she could hear him cursing in the distance.

"**The bots are closing in your location, Molly. I'm going to deactivate the security protocol now but it's going to take some time."**

"How long?"

"**A few seconds. A few minutes. Maybe longer. Maybe quite a bit longer."**

"Maybe?"

"**I've never been on a Xeraphin's ship, Molly. There's no manual for this!"**

"There is. Not the manual, but…" Molly closed her eyes, trying to calm the blood pounding in her head. "There is. I mean, the what-to-do. It's in my mind."

Silence reigned for a few seconds before there a small sigh was registered on the other end of the communication. **"You did a psychic transfer."**

Molly let out a shaky laugh, "Not good?"

"**That's…Not good, Molly - "** He paused. **" - but don't mind that. There is an air duct on your right hand side that should be able to lead you back to the main level."**

Somewhere above her, there was a click, and her heart leaped when she heard the sound of laser melting the metal floor. The bots were closing in on her faster than expected.

"Doctor?"

"**Yes, yes I know. There are ten, no, twenty bots directly above you."**

The air duct was sealed, so Molly had to switch the gun's power to heat-beam in order to melt the bolts.

Soon, there was a high-pitched whirring in the air as an army of defense bots advanced towards her.

Forcing herself to stay calm, Molly quickly switched the gun's power again and aimed it at the bots. Her aim might not be good but she had already taken out four of the bots before they got to within five meters of her. However, more and more bots appeared along side the ones that were already there and there was no way she could destroy them all.

One of the bots got a hit at the wall beside her and tiny pieces of metal cut into the skin of her left hand. The pain was enough for her to lose her grip on the seal.

"**Molly!"**

"I—I'm fine." She tightened her grip on the gun and shot another five bots before her other hand managed to grab onto the bars again. However, the blood caused her hand to slip and she couldn't grab onto the bars tight enough to start pulling.

Just when she was seriously considering to let go of the gun in favor of pulling the seal open with both hands, the whirring sound stopped and the bots started to drop onto the ground.

"**Yowzah!" **

Molly let out a breath she didn't know she was holding. Her hands dropped limply to her side when she leaned against the wall, blood dripping down from her arm to the floor.

She allowed herself a few moments to catch her breath before she tore a strip of fabric from her shirt and bandaged her bleeding arm.

"**Molly?"**

"Yeah?"

"**Are you alright?"**

"Yeah." She finished the knot with the help of one hand and her teeth. "Yeah, I'm good."

* * *

Molly arrived outside of the control room out of breath and sticky with blood and perspiration, but she found the Doctor standing there, smiling at her.

His smile vanished upon seeing her, eyes taking in her injuries. "Oh, Molly, Molly. There you are!" He went forward and hugged her tightly. "How are you?"

"I'm fine. It's just a few scratches."

He bent down to look her in the eyes. "Not good, Molly. Extremely not good."

Molly, knowing what the Doctor was referring to, told herself not to panic. "I had to do it. I couldn't find you, there was no other way."

"I know." He pressed a kiss to her forehead gently and sighed. "You're a brave girl, Molly Hooper."

Molly blinked back the tears that threatened to fall. "Can't you — Can't you take it away?"

The Doctor looked down at her sadly. "That's the thing with psychic transfer, Molly, it's a two-way thing. The knowledge, and the memories, were given to you through a psychic bond that was formed willingly between two beings. The information you acquired are rearranging themselves in your mind ever since the transfer. They are becoming a part of you."

"So you can't—"

"I cannot just take it away, Molly. I would disrupt the process and it would destroy your mind."

Molly felt a wave of panic sweep through her and knew now was not the time to have a breakdown. Even with the radiation, the Xeraphin would come to the ship when they get desperate enough.

The Doctor could see how scared Molly was. Fighting the urge to grab her in an embrace again, he went to work on the panel to get the door open. "So what is the plan, Molly? What did the Xeraphin tell you to do?"

"Roan. His name's Roan."

"Alright. What did Roan tell you?"

"When I cut off the psychic link, he will be free to deal with the others. So I find you, and we get out of here."

Even with his head bowed, Molly caught the expression on his face. "What's wrong?"

"What?"

"The plan. Something's wrong with the plan, isn't it? That's why you have that face on."

"What face? I wear this face everyday! Well, not everyday, after my – "

"You know something. Just tell me."

At this moment, the system worked under the Doctor's ministrations and the door opened.

Molly put a hand on his arm after they stepped into the room. "Doctor?"

The Doctor looked at Molly quietly for a while before turning his gaze to the crystal. "Most of the ship's power is directed to the crystal, yes?"

"How long has it been doing that?" he asked when she nodded.

"Urm…" She closed her eyes and raked through her disarray mess of a mind. "Seven months."

"Seven months inside, a decade outside," The Doctor muttered to himself when he pointed his sonic screwdriver at the crystal.

The triangular crystal was floating in mid air, secured in a glass case in the middle of the room, pulsing brightly in blue.

He spoke again when he looked at the reading on the screwdriver. "When you cut the psychic link, there will be an explosion in ten minutes."

Her eyes widened in surprise. "Explosion?"

"The crystal doesn't just sustain the psychic link, Molly. It _is_ the corporeal form of the psychic link. When you cut it off, the concentrated power it collected so far will be released."

Molly closed her eyes in despair. "Why didn't…why didn't he tell me this?"

"Because then you wouldn't do it."

She looked at the Doctor, eyes full of confusion. "I don't understand."

"He accessed your mind, Molly. He knows who you are. So he knows you will try to save them."

She stared at him in disbelief for a few moments. "You mean…"

When he pulled her into his arms, she whispered, "No."

He tightened his arms around her. "The rift is expanding every seconds, Molly. It will have to come in contact with a large complicated space-time event in order to seal off itself. With the psychic link broken, the Xeraphins will turn into their gestalt forms and get reabsorbed into the crystal. Their lives, in combination with the essence of the crystal, will be enough to close the rift."

"The entire species will be gone, Doctor."

"Yes."

* * *

Roan knew the moment the link was severed. There was a sharp pain in his head that would've rendered him unconscious if it wasn't for the restrictor around his neck.

He knew what he had to do.

His species will be extinct. But the poison would be gone when their minds joined again, and however brief that is, they will die with a clear conscience that they can never harm anyone else.

It was painful, to know that your species will never again see the stars. But he took comfort in the fact that one person in this universe will remember them.

Molly Hooper.

* * *

Bolts of bright gaseous forms flew into the crystal moments after Molly cut the psychic link. And with a heavy heart, she knew it would be the last time she saw them; that they would live for a brief ten minutes before they were gone forever.

With the knowledge and memories of Roan lodged in her mind, Molly felt as though she was one of them.

"Let's go, Molly." The Doctor took her arm when the place started to shake.

With one last look at the pulsing crystal, she nodded dejectedly and let him steer her towards the door.

When they stepped out of the spaceship, Molly's breath caught when she saw Roan standing there, looking straight at her.

"Roan."

The Xeraphin gave her a nod. "Molly Hooper." Then he turned to look at the Doctor. "A Time Lord. Pleasure to meet you."

"I am sorry you had to do this, Roan. If there is any other way – "

"You would help us, I know. I saw her memories."

Molly took a step forward. "You don't have to do this. You can come with us, right? We can go everywhere in the TARDIS! The Doctor can find you a safe planet and – "

"You know it, that Xeraphin cannot exist alone, as we are creatures of a hive mind." He continued when Molly opened her mouth to protest, "I want to be with them, to be reunited. For us, it is a luxury before the end."

He gave the pathologist a deep bow. "Goodbye, Molly Hooper. It is an honour to have met you." Then he turned away, continuing his journey to the spacecraft, without looking back.

"Goodbye, Roan," Molly whispered, her voice carried softly in the air.

The Doctor turned to look at her when she put her hand on his arm. Her lips trembled and her eyes welled up in tears, but she only looked at Roan whose figure was getting more transparent every second. He placed his hand on top of hers, hoping to give her some consolations, and was thankful that she couldn't see the expression on his face.

He knew the feeling of being the one to wipe out your own race. The ever-consuming guilt threatening to break your mind apart.

But he also knew that for Roan, it was a blessing; that he didn't have to live every day of his remaining life regretting his action.

They stood there, watching silently as Roan transformed back to his gestalt form in a final flash of energy. The Doctor could almost hear the voices of the gestalt, voices talking in the crystal, their minds united, oddly calm in the face of destruction.

Then he felt it. The shift in the air. The rift had detected the accumulation of concentrated time energy, and was now seeking it.

"Come on, Molly. Let's get out of here."

* * *

**Serbia, 17th November 2013. Present Day.**

Behind the closed door, a man with long filthy hair slumped forward as far as he could with both of his hands shackled to the railing.

"Sorry, but the holiday is over, brother dear."

"Mycroft."

"Now back to Baker Street, Sherlock Holmes."

* * *

**A/N:** Yay! Finally we have all of them back in London! Thank you so much for reading, and sorry again for the delay.

I can't wait to write the next chapter, new adventure with all favourite characters :D

Reviews are very welcomed :) Let me know what you think!


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